The President of Feature Story News, Simon Marks, has written the following on the company's blog. Below find links to download footage of Roxana Saberi on assignment in Iran:
Roxana Saberi's parents were permitted to visit their daughter - and our former Tehran Bureau Chief - at Evin Prison today. They report that she "seems to be OK", despite the fact that she continues to face an 8-year jail sentence following her conviction on trumped-up charges of "espionage".
Following President Mahmood Ahmadinejad's intervention over the weekend, the head of the country's judiciary has ordered a full investigation into Roxana's case. Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi issued a decree in Tehran this morning ordering that the "different dimensions of this case ... must be considered at the appeals stage in a careful, quick and fair way".
While welcoming these developments, we note that the Ayatollah's decree implies that fairness and equity do not usually lie at the heart of the Iranian judiciary's appeals process. Roxana's fellow inmates at Evin Prison deserve nothing less as well.
As for President Ahmadinejad, he's just prompted a walkout of delegates at the UN's Racism Conference in Geneva. We hope that behind closed doors, his Swiss hosts and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon are urging him to take immediate action to free Roxana.
If you'd like to see some of Roxana's reporting from Iran, you can find it here:
http://www.featurestorynews.com/freeroxana/freeroxana/roxanareporting.html
And if you're a broadcaster covering Roxana's story, you can download the video footage here:
MPG4: http://64.26.15.101/video/RoxanaSaberi-Broll.mp4
(To download: Right-click on the above files and select "Save Target As....")
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